


The Unstolen Child

by Fialleril



Series: Double Agent Vader [17]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Attempted Kidnapping, Double Agent Vader, Gen, Spies & Secret Agents, truly ridiculous amounts of painful irony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 10:31:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7754272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fialleril/pseuds/Fialleril
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every Force sensitive child must be registered with the Imperial Inquisition. When the time comes, they'll be collected for training.</p>
<p>Ahsoka is determined to make sure that doesn't happen. And she has some unexpected help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Unstolen Child

**Author's Note:**

> Forewarning, friends: the many levels of secrecy in this 'verse mean that this fic is nothing but pain. Well, and rescued children. There is that.

Ahsoka crouched low in the musty darkness of the cramped closet and focused all her thought on disappearing. Emptiness, she thought. I am nothing. We are nothing. We are air and shadow and there is no presence here.

Behind her, Aneeya Adu was shaking soundlessly in the dark, one hand clasped over her daughter Oholi’s mouth. Ahsoka knew they were there because she could feel the air they displaced, the solidity of other bodies in a close space. But she couldn’t sense them in the Force.

She had to make certain that remained the case.

Oholi shifted in her mother’s arms, and Ahsoka tensed. But there was no sign they’d been heard, and no feeling of triumph or surprise in the Force.

She could hear them moving about out there, stalking through the small house, speaking now and then in low, increasingly frustrated tones. Then there was the hum of a lightsaber, and a crash as something heavy fell, landing in several pieces.

Two Inquisitors. That was how it always was. Ahsoka didn’t know which pair this was, but it didn’t much matter. Always two there are, she thought in Master Yoda’s voice. It was almost funny.

Almost…

She’d almost come too late.

Oholi Adu was the last child on this list, a list that had once held twenty-seven names. The others were safe, all of them, hidden away on Rebel bases or on their way to safe houses scattered around the Outer Rim.

They would never be Jedi.

Some of them would grow up together, and perhaps they would learn a few things on their own, discover their connection to the Force in their own way. Ahsoka could still remember a time when that idea might have horrified her, when the thought of a Force-sensitive child growing up outside the Order would have been unthinkable.

But that was a long time ago now, and Ahsoka had lived outside the Order herself longer than she’d lived within it. She didn’t fear for these children.

Outside, there was a growl of frustration, much closer than before, and then a woman’s voice hissed, “It’s your incompetence that’s cost us this haul, Third Brother, and I won’t be taking the blame for it this time. You can answer to Lord Vader yourself. If we’d followed my advice – ”

The Third Brother said nothing. But a moment later there was a sharp whistle of air and the acrid smell of ionization as the tip of a red blade burned through the wall only a meter from Ahsoka’s face.

She held herself perfectly still, silent and focused absolutely in the Force. There was nothing here. Only a blank wall. No fear, no presence, no muffled child’s cry in the dark.

“What was that?” the Third Brother growled.

Ahsoka’s hands tightened on her lightsabers. She shifted silently, ready to spring. Behind her, Aneeya clutched her daughter to her chest with desperate strength.

“I didn’t – ” the other Inquisitor began, but she was interrupted by the startlingly loud beep of a comlink.

Sudden, frantic terror poured from the two Inquisitors in waves, flooding the Force, so powerful that Ahsoka was nearly overcome herself. She doubled down her shields and thought, I am empty air and cobwebs. I am less than nothing.

“Lord – Lord Vader,” she heard the Third Brother stammer. His gulp was audible even through the wall that separated them.

“I trust you have succeeded in your mission, Inquisitor,” Vader’s voice said, dark and sibilant. “The Emperor is growing impatient.”

In spite of herself Ahsoka shrank back, hiding her flinch in the dark. He sounded nothing like Anakin. And yet she always expected –

But he wasn’t her master. She had to remember that.

“My – My Lord, the target was – gone when we arrived,” the Third Brother stammered. His fear crashed over Ahsoka like an avalanche. “We did everything we could, but there must be a leak – ”

His voice cut off with an abrupt, strangled gurgle. It was followed by increasingly ragged and desperate wheezing gasps.

“The Emperor does not appreciate failure,” Vader said. “I can no longer be lenient with you, Third Brother.”

Ahsoka wondered if it was the mask that made him sound so dispassionate, or if it was simply him. She hugged her arms around her waist and focused entirely on her shields. Even present only through a transmission, Vader was far more dangerous than the Inquisitors.

On the other side of the wall, the wheezing sounds drew out and then ceased. There was the distinct thump of something heavy but soft impacting the plasteel floor.

Ahsoka squeezed her eyes shut and kept her own breath shallow.

“I hope, for your sake, Fourth Sister, that you have something better to report,” Vader said.

“I – ” the woman gulped. “My Lord, I did recommend to the Third Brother that we should modify our collection schedule. It’s obvious that there is a leak, and until it’s identified – ”

Ahsoka knew what was coming next, even before the Fourth Sister’s frantic words turned to choking gasps. Her hands gripped at her upper arms hard enough to leave bruises.

He was not her master. He was not –

“You disappoint me, Inquisitor,” Vader said. “I expect results, not excuses.”

Ahsoka bit her lip. A trickle of blood ran into her mouth, and she focused herself on the salt iron tang. Outside, there was another soft thump, and the metallic clatter of a small comlink striking the floor.

She held herself still and silent for several minutes, tasting the blood, focusing on her shallowed breath, eyes closed tightly against the dark. She could feel the displacement of air that meant Aneeya and Oholi were shifting behind her, restless, but their movements were almost perfectly silent.

Ahsoka stretched out with her feelings.

She sensed no presence of life beyond their hiding place. The strange, muted feeling of Vader’s presence through the hologram was gone, too. They were alone.

She pushed aside the hidden section of wall and crawled out.

Aneeya’s home was in ruins. Furniture was slashed and broken, scorches marked the walls and floors and even, in places, the ceiling, drawers had been emptied and their contents scattered in jumbled heaps over the floor.

And just beside the entrance to their hiding place were the bodies of two Inquisitors. A human woman and a Zabrak man. Ahsoka didn’t recognize either of them.

With a grimace she grabbed first the man and then the woman, dragging the bodies some distance from the hidden door and covering them with large swaths of cloth that might once have been curtains. Only then did she tell Aneeya it was safe to come out.

The Twi’lek woman emerged slowly from their hiding place and her daughter followed, eyes blown huge and terrified. Both were silent.

“We have to hurry,” Ahsoka whispered. “Take what you need and let’s go.”

Aneeya nodded shakily and began moving around the room, collecting clothes and a handful of other small items and shoving them into a rucksack. Oholi stood still, her eyes enormous, slow tears leaking down her cheeks, though she hardly seemed aware of them.

Ahsoka rested a hand on the girl’s shoulder, squeezing gently, and Oholi looked up at her tremulously, her lekku twitching with her fear.

“It’s going to be all right,” Ahsoka whispered.

Oholi sniffed, straightening her back in a way that, under other circumstances, might have made Ahsoka smile. “Do you promise?” she asked.

“That’s right,” said Ahsoka, crouching down to look the girl in the eye. “We’re going to a place where you and your mama will both be safe. And there’ll be other youngl– other children like you. And you won’t ever have to be afraid that someone will take you away from your mama. I promise.”

Oholi studied her very solemnly. “Okay,” she said with a sharp nod. “Will my mommy be there too?”

Ahsoka’s heart ached. There was no way she could answer that question with any certainty, at least not while telling the truth. Myana Taylis had been missing for a week already.

“I hope so, Oholi,” she told the girl. “We’ll do everything we can to make sure she is. I promise.”

“Okay,” the girl said, holding Ahsoka’s gaze as she nodded decisively once more. “Okay.”

And then she was darting off to help her mother pack.

Ahsoka stood still, her arms wrapped around herself once more, the confidence she’d tried so hard to project frozen on her face.

They would be safe, she told herself. In a way, Vader had even helped them. There were two less Inquisitors for her to worry about now, and no new recruits either. There hadn’t been any new recruits in years. She’d made sure of that.

That was what mattered. That was all that mattered. The children were safe, and they were free. She wouldn’t think about An – she wouldn’t think about Vader any further.

“We’re ready,” said Aneeya, her voice soft and hesitant, and Ahsoka blinked and came back to the present moment.

Focus, she told herself. Your focus determines your reality. She didn’t let herself think about the fact that she still heard those words in Anakin’s voice.

“All right,” she said, offering a smile to mother and daughter. “Let’s go.”

*

“Anakin?”

Kadee might not be able to modulate her tone, but she did have full control over the volume of her voice. And right now, it was markedly louder than usual. How long had she been trying to get his attention? He didn’t know.

“Ahsoka,” he breathed, an exhalation more than a word. But Kadee, of course, heard.

“What?” she asked. “Anakin, what’s wrong?”

“Ahsoka was there,” he said, his eyes still starring unblinking at the black outer shell of his medical pod. “I could feel her.”

Kadee was silent for a long moment. Then he felt one of her claws squeeze his shoulder, and she said, much more softly, “Let’s get you out of this mask, and then you can tell me everything.”

He didn’t resist as she maneuvered him into the medical pod and engaged the hyperbaric seals. The mask lifted away with agonizing slowness, and that first gasp of pure oxygenated air burned like primal fire.

“She was there, Kadee,” he choked. “She’s Mothma’s agent.”

Kadee buzzed about, connecting charge ports and nutrient tubes, running diagnostics and clicking every now and then to herself as she read the results. “Well,” she said. “That’s a good thing, isn’t it? You know she’s an agent you can trust.”

Anakin laughed. Even to his own ears, it had an edge of desperation. “I suppose you’re right.”

Ahsoka Tano. His pad–

He’d known she was alive, of course. He’d been careful to ensure their paths would never cross, because he wanted her to stay that way. And he’d never doubted she was involved with the Rebellion. She could never be anything else.

But this –

“Besides,” Kadee was saying as she studied his iron levels, “we ought to be celebrating. That’s two more Inquisitors down – ”

“ – and only four more to go,” Anakin said, smiling in spite of himself.

“It really is a shame they’re so incompetent,” Kadee said, and Anakin completely failed to hold back a snort. Her toneless voice made her a natural master of sarcasm. “If only Depur could find qualified people. Then you wouldn’t have to keep killing them.”

“Yes, it truly is a tragedy,” Anakin said, dry as dust.

“What are you going to tell Depur?”

“The truth, of course,” Anakin said, allowing himself a slight smirk. “The Inquisitors’ continued failure could no longer be tolerated. The future of the Empire is at stake.”

“And your future too,” Kadee said. “Of course.” She’d finished her tests now, and was already bringing up the holographic Dejarik board they’d installed two weeks ago. This time, Anakin thought, he was going to win.

“Of course,” he said, gesturing for Kadee to take the first move. “The most important lesson any Sith apprentice learns is that he must never suffer a rival. And I am nothing if not a model Sith apprentice.”

“I’ve always said so,” Kadee said, servos humming.

She won the game, but it took her nearly fifty moves to do so, and Anakin counted that a win.

**Author's Note:**

> Although Ahsoka doesn't know it, Ekkreth is also the source of the Inquisitors' lists that Mothma sends on to her.
> 
> Also, just to be clear: Yes, Oholi has two moms. And no, Myana isn't dead. She's currently been captured by the Empire, but she's going to escape. There will be no dead lesbians in this 'verse.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] The Unstolen Child](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13227741) by [isweedan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/isweedan/pseuds/isweedan)




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